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What steps should be taken, if any, when you find out your home's market value is underwater, i.e. worth less than the mortgage owed? | Do you still enjoy living in your home? Can you afford the mortgage payments? Is there a reason for you to move, such as a relocation for work, or your third kid is on the way and your current house is already crowded with two? Those questions are more important than "Is my home worth more than what I owe on it". Ultimately, it's your home. You probably chose it for more than just its price, and those qualities should still make it valuable to you in some way beyond the monetary value which goes up and down with the market. You have a few options: |
If I believe a stock is going to fall, what options do I have to invest on this? | What financial instruments are there that are profitable when an underlying assets falls? The instrument you are looking for is called an Option, specifically a Put Option. It allows you, within the validity date, to sell ('Put') the respective shares to the option giver, at the predefined Strike Price. For example, let's assume APPL trades currently at 100 $ per share, and you think they will go down a lot. You buy one Put Option for 100 shares (they always come for larger amounts like 100s) for a Strike Price of 90 $, and pay 5 $ for it (it would be cheap if nobody believes they will fall that much). Note the last sentence under 2. - it is rather easy and very common when trading options to make complete losses. You have been warned. Are they available for IPOs? They could be available for IPOs, even before the IPO. However, someone has to put them out (some large bank, typically), which is some effort, and they would only do that if they expect enough interest and volume in the trade. most of the time, there will be no such options on the market. Are they available for foreign stocks?Yes, but again only selectively - only if the stock is well known and interesting enough for a broad audience. |
Why does historical price data not go back all the way on Google Finance? | Google Finance and Yahoo Finance have been transitioning their API (data interface) over the last 3 months. They are currently unreliable. If you're just interested in historical price data, I would recommend either Quandl or Tiingo (I am not affiliated with either, but I use them as data sources). Both have the same historical data (open, close, high, low, dividends, etc.) on a daily closing for thousands of Ticker symbols. Each service requires you to register and get a unique token. For basic historical data, there is no charge. I've been using both for many months and the data quality has been excellent and API (at least for python) is very easy! If you have an inclination for python software development, you can read about the drama with Google and Yahoo finance at the pandas-datareader group at https://github.com/pydata/pandas-datareader. |
Is leveraging notoriety to raise stock prices illegal in the US? | There are obviously lots of complexities here, and there are rules against price or market manipulation that are somewhat interpretive due to the rules' inclusion of the manipulator's intent, but: Generally speaking, you can publicly promote the value of a company whose stock you own provided that you: Now, if you extol the value of a company publicly, and sell it immediately thereafter, "pump and dump," the regulators might suggest that your actions imply that you didn't believe it was so wonderful, and were misleading the public to move the price. That said, a fair retort might be that you loved it for all the reasons you said at [lower price], but thought it had run its course once it got to [higher price]. Again, if it can be demonstrated that your reason for praising it was to push the price higher, your intent may land you in hot water. This isn't legal advice or a full analysis, but if Fitty essentially declared his honest reasons for loving a stock in which he is invested, and discloses that investment, letting others know he is biased, he's probably ok, especially if he intends to hold it long term. |
Why does it seem unnecessary to fully save for irregular periodic expenses? | It totally depends on when your expenses hit and whether you might have a larger stock than necessary. If you run your projections against the monthly save and the intervals of when you'll need the money, you might be able to extract some stock from the account. I recommend making this a bit simpler. I operate this with an "annuals" account which is a complete aggregate of expenses that I know I have several times per year (or once every two years), but are not monthly or part of a weekly non-fixed expense budget cap. Instead of tracking each expense individually and saving for it, create a spreadsheet that lists out all of these expenses, sum them, and then divide by 12. When I first opened this account, I added a one-time deposit to "catchup" to make sure I would never need to pull money from another source for these expenses. As new expenses come into existence that I should plan for annually, I simply add them to this list and adjust the monthly auto-deposit to the account. This also adjusts my single number weekly budget. To make it easy, whenever I see an expense on my annuals list on my amex or debit, I simply initiate a withdrawal from the annuals savings and it will balance out my weekly or monthly budget expenses. The goal of my annuals account is to simply avoid anti-windfalls that are known quantities (insurance, annual eye exam, sprinkler flush, amazon prime, etc) that would throw a wrench in weekly/monthly budget and expense planning. The more variables you can remove from your weekly/monthly, the more regular it becomes and the more likely you will be able to stick to a budget. |
Can one get a house mortgage without buying a house? | First, many banks do not keep the loan. Even if they send you a payment notice and process the monthly payment, there's still a good chance the loan itself was packed up and sold to investors. Collateralizing mortgages, in and of itself, is not inherently dangerous. But the loan definitely needs a house behind it. If you found a bank that keeps its loans, it would be a tough sell. You'd be asking them to trust that you've chosen the right number to match up with the house you intend to buy. And then they'd need to have another round of processing to turn this into a loan with normal collateral (i.e. put a lien on the house and tie them together.) |
Is it worth it to reconcile my checking/savings accounts every month? | Sounds like you are reconciling more than once a month. I like to say I glance at all my statements, but these days I just look at the final balance and call it good. If a transaction shows up by mistake, I would find it in a couple of days because of how often I update my Quicken and Mint.com |
Using Euros to buy and sell NASDAQ stocks | Either way you'll be converting to US Dollars somewhere along the line. You are seeking something that is very redundant |
How should I deal with my long term gain this year? | I don't believe in letting the tax tail wag the investing dog. You have a stock you no longer wish to hold for whatever reason? Sell it. But to sell a loser, hoping it doesn't rise by the time you wish to re-buy it in 30 days is folly. This effort may gain you $50 if done right. No, it's not worth it either way. |
Is there a candlestick pattern that guarantees any kind of future profit? | John Person has a pattern called the High Close Doji that is probably the most reliable signal in the world of candle patterns. I would check out Candle Stick and Pivot Point Trade Triggers. It all I use in trading stocks + forex. |
How can I pay for school to finish my degree when I can't get a student loan and have bad credit? | Here's what you can do: roll up your sleeves and get to work. Work 2 or 3 jobs while you take 12 credit hours. Live in the cheapest available housing (that is reasonably safe). Have no social life. Wake up, work, class, eat, work, study, sleep. Every day. Don't eat at restaurants. Eat only simple meals at home. Every meal. Have a car payment? Get rid of your car and use public transit or get the cheapest running car possible. One year of nothing but focused effort on paying for and finishing school. If you can't earn enough to cover 14K on top of your basic living expenses, then you aren't working hard enough, or you have extenuating circumstances that make finishing your degree at this time infeasible. |
Are there any benefits to investing with a group of friends vs. by myself? | The benefits of pooling your money with others: The drawbacks of pooling your money with others: Practically Speaking - I say go for it. You stand to gain a lot of knowledge about how money works without having too much on the line. Good luck! |
How can I increase my hourly pay as a software developer? | Start by going to Salary.com and figuring out what the range is for your location (could be quite wide). Then also look at job postings in your area and see if any of them mention remuneration (gov't jobs tend to do this). If possible go and ask other people in your field what they think the expected range of salary should be. Take all that data and create a range for your position. Then try and place yourself in that range based on your experience and skill set. Be honest. Compare that with your own pay. If your figures indicate you should be making significantly more, schedule a meeting with your boss (or wait for a yearly review if it's relatively soon) and lay out your findings. They can say: Be ready for curve balls like benefits, work environment and other "intangibles". If they say no and you still think your compensation is unfair, it's time to polish up your CV. The easiest way to get a job is to already have one. |
How to avoid getting back into debt? | The essential (and obvious) thing to avoid getting back into debt (or to reduce debt if you have it) is to make your total income exceed your total expenses. That means either increasing your income or reducing your total expenses. Either take effort. Basically, you need a plan. If your plan is to increase income, work out how. If the plan is to increase hours in your current, you need to allow for your needs (sleep, rest, etc) and also convince your employer they will benefit by paying you to work more hours. If your intent is to increase your hourly rate, you need to convince a current or prospective employer that you have the capacity, skills, etc to deliver more on the job, so you are worth paying more. If your intent is to get qualifications so you can get a better paying job, work out how much effort (studying, etc) you will apply, over how long, what expenses you will carry (fees, textbooks, etc), and how long you will carry them for (will you accept working some years in a higher paying job, to clear the debt?). Most of those options involve a lot of work, take time, and often mean carrying debt until you are in a position to pay it off. There is nothing wrong with getting a job while studying, but you have to be realistic about the demands. There is nothing sacrosanct about studying that means you shouldn't have a job. However, you need to be clear how many hours you can work in a job before your studies will suffer unnecessarily, and possibly accept the need to study part time so you can work (which means the study will take longer, but you won't struggle as much financially). If your plan is to reduce expenses, you need a budget. Itemize all of your spend. Don't hide anything from that list, no matter how small. Work out which of the things you need (paying off debt is one), which you can get rid of, which you need to reduce - and by how much. Be brutal with reducing or eliminating the non-essentials no matter how much you would prefer otherwise. Keep going until you have a budget in which your expenses are less than your income. Then stick to it - there is no other answer. Revisit your budget regularly, so you can handle things you haven't previously planned for (say, rent increase, increase fees for something you need, etc). If your income increases (or you have a windfall), don't simply drop the budget - the best way to get in trouble is to neglect the budget, and get into a pattern of spending more than you have. Instead, incorporate the changes into your budget - and plan how you will use the extra income. There is nothing wrong with increasing your spend on non-essentials, but the purpose of the budget is to keep control of how you do that, by keeping track of what you can afford. |
What is market capitalization? [duplicate] | Market Capitalization is the product of the current share price (the last time someone sold a share of the stock, how much?) times the number of outstanding shares of stock, summed up over all of the stock categories. Assuming the efficient market hypothesis and a liquid market, this gives the current total value of the companies' assets (both tangible and intangible). Both the EMH and perfect liquidity may not hold at all times. Beyond those theoretical problems, in practice, someone trying to buy or sell the company at that price is going to be in for a surprise; the fact that someone wants to sell that many stocks, or buy that many stocks, will move the price of the company stock. |
If I put a large down payment (over 50%) towards a car loan, can I reduce my interest rate and is it smart to even put that much down? | Talk to your bank first but shop around a bit as well with other reputable lenders in your area. Another option, if you're willing to put down ~84% of the purchase price would be to talk to several dealerships BEFORE you set foot on a single lot. Tell them that you are interested in buying a Versa and that you are willing to pay cash but you are not willing to pay more than $10,200. They won't agree (trust me on that) but they will come down from $13,000. Say "Thanks, I'll call you back." and call one of the other dealerships on your list and tell them "I just spoke with this dealership and they are willing to sell me the car for [whatever number they gave you]." One of two things will happen, either the dealership will come back with a lower price or they will tell you to go buy the car there. Continue this process until you have one dealership left. I did this with 3 dealerships in 2011 and bought a truck with a $27,000 sticker price for just over $19,000. It took about a week to make all of the calls and I ended up going to a dealership 3 hours away but it was worth it for $8,000. |
Buying a multi-family home to rent part and live in the rest | This is one of those too good to be true things that is actually true. Why? Because only you can do this. Only you can deduct for primary home mortgage interest, only you can get a low cost mortgage (others would have to get investor mortgages at a higher interest rate). So its only a great deal for you. More people would do it if they could, but they can't, thats why you can and should do this. I have a similar setup and it is terrific. |
What is the formula for determining estimated stock price when I only have an earning per share number? | What you need to do is go to yahoo finance and look at different stock's P/E ratios. You'll quickly see that the stocks can be sorted by this number. It would be an interesting exercise to get an idea of why P/E isn't a fixed number, how certain industries cluster around a certain number, but even this isn't precise. But, it will give you an idea as to why your question has no answer. "Annual earnings are $1. What is the share price?" "Question has no answer" |
Who Bought A Large Number Of Shares? | Schedule 13D (or the abbreviated version, schedule 13G) would be the most likely place to find this info. When a person or group of persons acquires beneficial ownership of more than 5% of a voting class of a company’s equity securities registered under Section 12 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, they are required to file a Schedule 13D with the SEC. Schedule 13D reports the acquisition and other information within ten days after the purchase. Any material changes in the facts contained in the schedule require a prompt amendment. You can find the Schedules 13D for most publicly traded companies in the SEC’s EDGAR database. A 1% change in the amount of ownership is considered material. |
Can I trust the Motley Fool? | Upselling you is how they make money. That's the price of the free content. Test their recommendations. Pretend to buy the stocks they say. How do they do? Do they ever say to sell the stocks after their buy recommendations? There are lots and lots of opinions out there. I doubt people really hear about the good ones because (a) the good ones have paid newsletters and/or (b) the good ones aren't telling a soul because they're absolutely cleaning it up. Warren Buffett doesn't announce his intentions. He's been buying for a while before anyone finds out. |
How to calculate the number of months until a loan is paid off (given principal, APR and payment amount)? | Here is the derivation of the formula, with The loan is equal to the sum of the repayments discounted to present value. |
Could ignoring sunk costs be used to make an investment look more attractive when it's really not? | I'm not sure that you're considering all the options. So you may not subtract $X from B, but you do compare NPV(B) to $Y. Also, remember that we're not trying to figure out the return on B. We're trying to figure out what to do next. In terms of planning, the sunk cost is irrelevant. But in terms of calculating return, A was a turkey. And to calculate the return, we would include $X in our costs for B. And for the second option, we'd subtract $X from $Y (may be negative). Sunk costs are irrelevant to planning, but they are very relevant to retrospective analysis. Please don't confuse the two. When looking back, part of the cost for B will be that $X. But in the middle, after paying $X and before starting B, the $X is gone. You only have the building and have to make your decision based on the options you have at that moment. You will sometimes hear $Y called the opportunity cost of B. You could sell out for $Y or you could do B. You should only do B if it is worth more than $Y. The sunk cost fallacy would be comparing B to $X. Assuming $Y is less than $X, this would make you not do B when it is your best path forward from that moment. I.e. $Y < NPV(B) < $X means that you should do the project. You will lose money (apparently that's a foregone conclusion), but you will lose less money than if you just sold out. You should also do B if $Y < $X < NPV(B) or $X < $Y < NPV(B). In general, you should do B any time $Y < NPV(B). The only time you should not do B is if NPV(B) < $Y. If they are exactly equal, then it doesn't matter financially whether you do B or not. |
Ticker symbols differences between Yahoo Finance and BestInvest | It depends on what site you're looking on and what exchange they're pulling the data from. Even though funds and stocks are called the same thing, they have different ticker symbols in each country's exchange or could be traded as pink sheet stocks in the US. If a company or fund is based in another country (like Canada or the UK) they probably also trade on that country's exchange (Toronto or London) under a different symbol. This can cause a lot of confusion when researching these tickers. |
Pay Yourself With Credit Card Make Money With Cash Back [duplicate] | The idea is old as dirt, and some millions of people had it before you. Credit card swipes cost you between 2.4 and 4.5%, depending on the cards, the provider, and the amounts, plus potentially a fixed small amount per swipe. Of course, a 2% cash back card cost more than 2% to swipe; and a 3% cash back card cost more than 3% to swipe; those guys are not morons. |
I got my bank account closed abruptly how do I get money out? | If you can get to a physical branch, get a cashier's check (or call them and have them send you one by mail). When they draft the cashier's check they remove the money from your account immediately and the check is drawn against the bank itself. You could hold onto that check for a little while even after your account closes and you make other arrangements for banking. If you cannot get a cashier's check, then you should try to expeditiously open a new account and do an ACH from old to new. This might take more days to set up than you have left though. |
Paying extra on a mortgage. How much can I save? [duplicate] | Paying $12,000 in lump sumps annually will mean a difference of about $250 in interest vs. paying $1,000 monthly. If front-load the big payment, that saves ~$250 over paying monthly over the year. If you planned to save that money each month and pay it at the end, then it would cost you ~$250 more in mortgage interest. So that's how much money you would have to make with that saved money to offset the cost. Over the life of the loan the choice between the two equates to less than $5,000. If you pay monthly it's easy to calculate that an extra $1,000/month would reduce the loan to 17 years, 3 months. That would give you a savings of ~$400,000 at the cost of paying $207,000 extra during those 17 years. Many people would suggest that you invest the money instead because the annual growth rates of the stock market are well in excess of your 4.375% mortgage. What you decide is up to you and how conservative your investing strategy is. |
Finding out actual items bought via credit card issuer and not the store receipt? | The stores track the individual items for inventory planning and marketing purposes. Having worked in the transaction processing business for a time (writing one), I can say with confidence that the credit/debit card companies do not receive an itemized list of the items involved in the transaction. There is usually a description field in the information transmitted to the processor, which may or may not contain useful information. But it is not big enough to contain an itemized grocery list of any size. And it is not standardized in any way that would facilitate reliable parsing. There may be an amount of metadata about the transaction that would indicate the types of products involved in the transaction, which they can also infer from the merchant reporting the transaction. There are efforts to increase the amount of data reported, but they are not widely used yet, due to the overwhelming numbers of banks that would need to be upgraded. These efforts are rolling out only in specific and limited uses where the banks involved are willing to upgrade software and equipment. For now, the best way to know what you bought is to keep your receipts from the store. Shoeboxes work great for this. So do smartphone cameras and a folder on your hard drive. There are also mobile apps that track receipts for you, and may even try to OCR the data for you. |
When buying a call option, is the financial stability of the option writer relevant? | In the case of regulated, exchange-traded options, the writer of an options contract is obliged to maintain a margin with their broker, and the broker is obliged to maintain a margin with the clearing house. (Institutional writers of options will deal directly with the clearing house.) In the event that the writer is unable to make a daily margin call, the broker (or clearing house) may automatically close out (all of) their positions using existing margin held. If there was a shortfall, the broker (or clearing house) would be left to persue the client (writer) to make good on their obligations. None of this effects the position of the original buyer of the options contract. Effectively, the buyer's counterparty is their broker's clearing house account. |
Health Insurance and Disability Question | Sorry to hear about your spouse's health issues. May he have a speedy and, as far as possible, full recovery. The Patient Protectection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA, aka Obamacare) is now the law of the land. Among its many provisions are that insurers may no longer deny coverage for pre-existing conditions, they may not put lifetime caps on benefits, and they may not charge different premiums based on any criteria except age cohort and geographic area (i.e. rates may be higher for 50 year olds than 30 year olds, but sick and healthy 50 year olds living in the same area pay the same). If he gets government health coverage because he's on disability, this may not matter. On the other hand, you might find it better to put him on your employer's policy, because you like the coverage better, the employer covers part of the dependent premium, or some other reason. In any case, they can't discriminate against him or you based on his condition. ETA: Rates may vary by geography as well as age. |
Tax implications of restricted stock units | With the Employee Stock Purchase Plan stock, if you sell it in less than 18 months from exercise, the discount you bought it at (normally 15%) becomes taxable income and included in your W-2. |
Do you pay taxes on stock gains that are just returning to their original purchase price? | The tax is only payable on the gain you make i.e the difference between the price you paid and the price you sold at. In your cse no tax is payable if you sell at the same price you bought at |
How do I get into investing in stocks? | Before putting any significant money into stocks, I would recommend spending at least a year paper trading. It is amazing how much money you can lose trading stocks when you don't know what you are doing! |
What is the PEG ratio? How is the PEG ratio calculated? How is the PEG ratio useful for stock investing? | PEG is Price to Earnings Growth. I've forgotten how it's calculated, I just remember that a PEG ratio of 1-2 is attractive by Graham & Dodd standards. |
Pros and Cons of Interest Only Loans | The main disadvantage is that interest rates are higher for the interest-only loan. It's higher risk to the bank, since the principal outstanding is higher for longer. According to the New York Times, "Interest rates are usually an eighth- to a half-percentage point higher than on fully amortized jumbo loans." They're also tougher to qualify for, and fewer lenders offer them, again due to the risk to the bank. Since you can always put extra towards the principal, strictly speaking, these are the only downsides. The upside, of course, is that you can make a lower payment each month. The question is what are you doing with this? If this is the only way you can afford the payments, there's a good chance the house is too expensive for you. You're not building equity in the home, and you have the risk of being underwater if the house price goes down. If you're using the money for other things, or you have variable income, it might be a different story. For the former, reinvesting in a business you own might be a reason, if you're cognizant of the risks. For the latter, salespeople on commission, or financial industry types who get most of their income in bonuses, can benefit from the flexibility. |
Investing in stocks with gross income (not yet taxed) cash from contract work? | In most jurisdictions, you want to split the transactions. Why? Because you want to report capital gains on your investment income, and this will almost always be taxed at a lower rate than employment income. See Wikipedia's article for more information about capital gains. In Canada, you pay tax on 50% of your realized capital gains. There are also ways to shelter your gains from tax; in Canada, TFSA, in the US, I believe these are 'roth' accounts. I actually think you have to split the transactions, at least in Canada and the U.S., though I'm not absolutely sure. Regardless, you want to do so if you plan on making money with your investments. If you plan on making a loss, please contact me as I'm happy to accept the money you are planning on throwing away. |
Help required on estimating SSA benefit amounts | Some details in case you are interested: Being a defined benefit kind of pension plan, the formula for your Social Security benefits isn't tied directly to FICA contributions, and I'm not aware of any calculator that performs an ROI based on FICA contributions. Rather, how much you'll get in retirement is based on your average indexed monthly earnings. Here's some information on the Social Security calculation from the Social Security Administration - Primary Insurance Amount (PIA): For an individual who first becomes eligible for old-age insurance benefits or disability insurance benefits in 2013, or who dies in 2013 before becoming eligible for benefits, his/her PIA will be the sum of: (a) 90 percent of the first $791 of his/her average indexed monthly earnings, plus (b) 32 percent of his/her average indexed monthly earnings over $791 and through $4,768, plus (c) 15 percent of his/her average indexed monthly earnings over $4,768. Here's an example. Of course, to calculate a benefit in the future, you'll need to calculate projected average indexed monthly earnings; more details here. You'll also need to make assumptions about what those bend points might be in the future. The average wage indexing values for calculating the AIME are available from the Social Security Administration's site, but future indexing values will also need to be projected based on an assumption about their inflation. You'll also need to project the Contribution and Benefit Base which limits the earnings used to calculate contributions and benefits. Also, the PIA calculation assumes benefits are taken at the normal retirement age. Calculating an early or late retirement factor is required to adjust benefits for another age. Then, whatever benefits you get will increase each year, because the benefit is increased based on annual changes in the cost of living. Performing the series of calculations by hand isn't my idea of fun, but implementing it as a spreadsheet (or a web page) and adding in some "ROI based on FICA contributions" calculations might be an interesting exercise if you are so inclined? For completeness sake, I'll mention that the SSA also provides source code for a Social Security Benefit Calculator. |
What is the point of the stock market? What is it for, and why might someone want to trade or invest? | The stock market is just like any other market, but stocks are bought and sold here. Just like you buy and sell your electronics at the electronics market, this is a place where buyers and sellers come together to buy and sell shares or stocks or equity, no matter what you call it. What are these shares? A share is nothing but a portion of ownership of a company. Suppose a company has 100 shares issued to it, and you were sold 10 out of those, it literally means you are a 10% owner of the company. Why do companies sell shares? Companies sell shares to grow or expand. Suppose a business is manufacturing or producing and selling goods or services that are high in demand, the owners would want to take advantage of it and increase the production of his goods or services. And in order to increase production he would need money to buy land or equipment or labor, etc. Now either he could go get a loan by pledging something, or he could partner with someone who could give him money in exchange for some portion of the ownership of the company. This way, the owner gets the money to expand his business and make more profit, and the lender gets a portion of profit every time the company makes some. Now if the owner decides to sell shares rather than getting a loan, that's when the stock market comes into the picture. Why would a person want to trade stocks? First of all, please remember that stocks were never meant to be traded. You always invest in stocks. What's the difference? Trading is short term and investing is long term, in very simple language. It's the greed of humans which led to this concept of trading stocks. A person should only buy stocks if he believes in the business the company is doing and sees the potential of growth. Back to the question: a person would want to buy stocks of the company because: How does a stock market help society? Look around you for the answer to this question. Let me give you a start and I wish everyone reading this post to add at least one point to the answer. Corporations in general allow many people come together and invest in a business without fear that their investment will cause them undue liability - because shareholders are ultimately not liable for the actions of a corporation. The cornerstone North American case of how corporations add value is by allowing many investors to have put money towards the railroads that were built across America and Canada. For The stock market in particular, by making it easier to trade shares of a company once the company sells them, the number of people able to conveniently invest grows exponentially. This means that someone can buy shares in a company without needing to knock door to door in 5 years trying to find someone to sell to. Participating in the stock market creates 'liquidity', which is essentially the ease with which stocks are converted into cash. High liquidity reduces risk overall, and it means that those who want risk [because high risk often creates high reward] can buy shares, and those who want low risk [because say they are retiring and don't have a risk appetite anymore] can sell shares. |
Understanding the phrase "afford to lose" better | I think that people only use the phrase "only spend what you can afford to lose" when they are talking about the most risky or speculative investments, or even gambling. When talking about gambling, the following quote is a bottom line: The speculative investment that brought me to this question via google is how much should I invest in Bitcoin? I was tempted to put in 10% of my investments, not including the 6 month safety fund and not including equity in my home. Now thinking about this question, it seems that it depends on your income as a percentage of your investment income (which should grow in proportion to the whole over time). For example: Early stage of career, not much investment income: 20% Mid career: 5% Mid-late career, moving to more safe investments: 5% Late career, retirement: 1% Another way to calculate would be as a percentage of the amount you put into retirement savings per year. Maybe 10% of this figure when you're young and 1% nearer to retirement. |
What are the opportunities/implications of having a designated clearing bank in my home country? | I strongly urge you against this despite the fact that you may enjoy lucrative interest rates in the short run. Considering the reckless usage of deposits and other public monies to build buildings just to claim that gdp is high (they count the cost of real estate as investment not their final sales as the rest of the world does), all depositors in Chinese banks stand to lose or at least have their funds frozen (since all credit funding the real estate building comes from the banks and taxes & land seizures to a lesser degree). China's reckless building: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wm7rOKT151Y East Asian Crisis (Chapters 11 & 12): http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/commandingheights/lo/story/ch_menu_03.html This can be prolonged if they open their financial system to outside funding, but that will also amplify the effect. |
How can I stop a merchant from charging a credit card processing fee? | You have no recourse on the spot to do anything to the vendor other than pay the fee, pay cash, or walk away. If you're on a mission with longer-term horizon than immediate satisfaction, your options will vary by state. If you're in a state where the fees are legal and the owner is (potentially) violating an agreement with the card company, you can report the vendor to the card company. They may or may not really care. If you're in a state where the fee is actually illegal, you'd need to see what options you have with the local authorities. You should keep in mind that if the vendor is violating an agreement that's between the vendor and the card company only, you have absolutely no rights to enforce that agreement. You only have legal rights if you're a party to the agreement in question or if the law gives you some special rights specific to given circumstances. (The lawyers call this having "standing.") Likewise if the vendor is doing something that's not consistent with the agreement between you and the card company, you also have no claim against the vendor (because the vendor is not party to your agreement with the card company), although you might have a claim against the card company. |
Separate bank account for security deposit from tenant | In Massachusetts, we have a similar law. Each tenant fills out a W9 and the account is in their name. You need to find a bank willing to do this at no cost, else fees can be problematic. With today's rates, any fee at all will exceed interest earned. |
On paper I have 1 share in my company. How can I sell a smaller percentage of my company to another party? | Do a share split. Your initial 1 share each becomes 10 (or 100) shares each, then you can sell/gift/etc shares as needed. |
I got my bank account closed abruptly how do I get money out? | This is very possibly a scam. The way the scam works is that the scammers send you a letter and demand you call the telephone number. But the telephone number belongs to the scammers, not the bank. When you call the number, they will 'authenticate' you by asking you a bunch of questions. They will then have enough information to call the bank and pretend to be you, and transfer out all of your money. What you need to do is to find the telephone number for your bank without making use of this letter. For example, look at a previous bank statement, or find the telephone number on the bank's website. Call that number and discuss this letter. If you have already called the number in the letter and if you have the slightest reason to believe it is not valid, stop reading. This is an emergency. Immediately call a legitimate number at the bank. Explain the situation and note that you believe your information has been compromised. Why are you still reading? Do it now. |
Question about stock taxes buy/sell short term | If you have made $33k from winning trades and lost $30k from loosing trades your net gain for the year would be $3k, so obviously you would pay taxes only on the net $3k gains. |
Buying real estate with cash | To give the seller cash at the closing, you will need to borrow the money ahead of time, which means a mortgage is out. A bank will only make a mortgage if they get the deed. Therefore, you will have to borrow a different way, such as through a more-expensive home equity loan. |
Why are credit cards preferred in the US? | Personally, I use my credit cards for everything because I get reward points (or, cash back, depending on the card), and I build credit history. I've had credit cards since I was 18 (now 22), and my credit score is in the higher end 700s which I'm told is pretty good for my age. Additionally, since I put my rent and large purchases on my credit card, I have a lot of reward points. I use these to buy things I wouldn't normally buy to try them out and see if they bring any value into my life. If not, I didn't really lose anything, but I have found value in some of those things. I realize most of this is gamification and consumerism at play, but getting that extra little thing once in a while for "free" which is pretty nice. |
What happened to Home Depot's Stock in 1988? | So a major problem with looking at historical stock data on these graphs is that they set the stock price based off of current market volumn. If I was to say look at Majesco Entertainment (COOL) in june of 2016. It would say that the stock as trading between $5-6. In reality it was between .50-$1. But in august there was a 6:1 reverse split. So June's value based on todays current share count would be about $5-6 per one share. 1988 for home depot must have been a really bad year for them, and because of all the splits they've had over the years already screws that estimate of what one share is worth. There's a lot of variance in 1988, but you have to be looking at only 1988. 87 and 89 really screws the the chart's scale. |
Mortgage loan implications when tearing down existing house and building new one? | You would probably be best off checking through your loan documents to see if anything is listed in it in regards to tearing down the existing house. Likely it is not allowed. Thinking about it logically, the house is collateral for the mortgage, and you are wanting to destroy the collateral. I would expect the bank would not be pleased. Semi related question (answers have some good info) - Construction loan for new house replacing existing mortgaged house? |
Auto loan and student loan balance | I don't understand the calculations in the comments by the OP. He says My monthly savings after mandatory expense is around USD 2000. This includes rent, expenses, emergency fund savings, and the monthly required payment of my auto loan. (emphasis added) He has $2000 USD left over after monthly expenses (which includes rent, food, utilities etc, contribution towards emergency funds, and the required monthly payment on the auto loan). He claims that by applying the $2000 USD per month towards reducing the debt, it would take him 30-36 months to be debt-free. But is it not the case that applying the $2000 to the student loan of $18K+ (while continuing to make the auto loan payments) will pay the student loan off in less than 10 months? If no payments are made on that $18K+ student loan, the accrued interest of about $2K in 10 months (this is (18.25*13.7%*)(10/12) for a total of $20K+). In actuality, with the loan being paid down, the interest will be much less. Once the student loan is paid off, the extra $2000 can go towards what is left of the $10K auto loan each month and pay it off in another 4 or 5 months or so. So we are talking of 15 months max instead of 30-36 months. Of course, as Carlos Briebiescas points out, the car is more valuable as an asset than can be sold in case of job loss creating a need for cash etc, and so paying it off first might be better, but that is a different calculation. |
What is the different between one company's two OTCMKTS symbols? | I have not looked in details but apparently the company has (at least) a dual listing in Hong Kong (its main listing, ticker 700) and in the US (ticker TCTZF). It also has an ADR (TCEHY), the underlying of which is the HK line. The two US listings essentially trade at the same price and will provide very similar returns but a major difference is that TCTZF pays dividends in HKD whereas TCEHY pays its dividends in USD. The latter may be more convenient depending on the account you use to trade the stock. The ADR line is also more liquid. |
Did my salesman damage my credit? What can I do? | Hindsight is 20/20, but I offer some suggestions for how this might have gone down. If you had told the bank what was going on they might have extended the terms of your loan until the truck was ready. Alternatively you might have taken the loan (was it secured on the truck?) and put the money in a savings account until the truck showed up, while asking the dealer to pay the interest on it until the truck showed up. Or you might asked the dealer to supply you with a rental truck until yours showed up. I'm not saying I would have thought of these under the circumstances, but worth trying. |
Why buying an inverse ETF does not give same results as shorting the ETF | Suppose that the ETF is currently at a price of $100. Suppose that the next day it moves up 10% (to a price of $110) and the following day it moves down 5% (to a price of $104.5). Over these two days the ETF has had a net gain of 4.5% from its original price. The inverse ETF reverses the daily gains/losses of the base ETF. Suppose for simplicity that the inverse ETF also starts out at a price of $100. So on the first day it goes down 10% (to $90) and on the second day it goes up 5% (to $94.5). Thus over the two days the inverse ETF has had a net loss of 5.5%. The specific dollar amounts do not matter here. The result is that the ETF winds up at 110%*95% = 104.5% of its original price and the inverse ETF is at 90%*105% = 94.5% of its original price. A similar example is given here. As suggested by your quote, this is due to compounding. A gain of X% followed by a loss of Y% (compounded on the gain) is not in general the same as a loss of X% followed by a gain of Y% (compounded on the loss). Or, more simply put, if something loses 10% of its value and then gains 10% of its new value, it will not return to its original value, because the 10% it gained was 10% of its decreased value, so it's not enough to bring it all the way back up. Likewise if it gains 10% and then loses 10%, it will go slightly below its original value (since it lost 10% of its newly increased value). |
Am I considered in debt if I pay a mortgage? | I think you're thinking that "in debt" doesn't just mean "owes a debt" but somehow means "owes more debt in total than the assets". That condition, owing money without offsetting assets, is "having a negative net worth". If you have a mortgage then you have a debt and you are in debt. You may have a positive net worth, if you have equity in the house and your car and such like, and have cash in the bank. You may have a negative net worth if you owe more than you own. But either way you are technically in debt. Knowing that, it's not surprising that 75% of Americans are in debt. It's surprising that 25% are not. They have no credit card, no car loan, no mortgage, no line of credit, no student loans. Is it because they've paid all that off? Or because they are deadly poor and own nothing and can't be lent anything? You can't just say it's bad to have debt. It's bad to have too much debt, to have a negative net worth, to be in the habit of borrowing to finance a lifestyle you can't actually afford, and so on. But it's perfectly normal to have a debt or two. That's how our system mostly works. |
Investing $50k + Real Estate | I would say that, for the most part, money should not be invested in the stock market or real estate. Mostly this money should be kept in savings: I feel like your emergency fund is light. You do not indicate what your expenses are per month, but unless you can live off of 1K/month, that is pretty low. I would bump that to about 15K, but that really depends upon your expenses. You may want to go higher when you consider your real estate investments. What happens if a water heater needs replacement? (41K left) EDIT: As stated you could reduce your expenses, in an emergency, to 2K. At the bare minimum your emergency fund should be 12K. I'd still be likely to have more as you don't have any money in sinking funds or designated savings and the real estate leaves you a bit exposed. In your shoes, I'd have 12K as a general emergency fund. Another 5K in a car fund (I don't mind driving a 5,000 car), 5k in a real estate/home repair fund, and save about 400 per month for yearly insurance and tax costs. Your first point is incorrect, you do have debt in the form of a car lease. That car needs to be replaced, and you might want to upgrade the other car. How much? Perhaps spend 12K on each and sell the existing car for 2K? (19K left). Congratulations on attempting to bootstrap a software company. What kind of cash do you anticipate needing? How about keeping 10K designated for that? (9K left) Assuming that medical school will run you about 50K per year for 4 years how do you propose to pay for it? Assuming that you put away 4K per month for 24 months and have 9K, you will come up about 95K short assuming some interests in your favor. The time frame is too short to invest it, so you are stuck with crappy bank rates. |
Isn't the subtraction of deprecation and amortization redundant in the calculation of Owner's Earnings? | This formula is not calculating "Earnings". Instead, it is calculating "Free Cash Flow from Operations". As the original poster notes, the "Earnings" calculation subtracted out depreciation and amortization. The "Free Cash Flow from Operations" adds these values back, but for two different reasons: |
Can a company stop paying dividends? | Yes. Companies increase, decrease, start paying and stop paying dividends when they think it appropriate. If a company has been going through some problems and makes a loss, or even a large decrease in profits, they can choose to stop paying dividends until things improve. Many companies did this during the Global Financial Crisis of 2007-08. |
FICA was not withheld from my paycheck | According to this section in Publication 15: Collecting underwithheld taxes from employees. If you withheld no income, social security, or Medicare taxes or less than the correct amount from an employee's wages, you can make it up from later pay to that employee. But you’re the one who owes the underpayment. Reimbursement is a matter for settlement between you and the employee. [...] it seems that if the employer withheld less than the correct amount of FICA taxes from you, it is still the employer who owes your FICA taxes to the government, not you. I do not believe there is a way for you, an employee (not self-employed), to directly pay FICA taxes to the government without going through the employer. The employer can deduct the underwithheld amount from you future paychecks (assuming you still work for them), or settle it with you in some other way. In other words, you owe the employer, and the employer owes the government, but you do not directly owe the government. If they do deduct it from your future pay, then they can issue a corrected W-2, to reflect the amount deducted from you. But they cannot issue a corrected W-2 that says FICA were deducted from you if it wasn't. |
What's the catch in investing in real estate for rent? | There are several things that are missing from your estimate: The terms for the mortgage for a rental property will be different. You may be required to have a larger down payment. When approving you for the mortgage they will not count all the rental income as income, they will assume periodic vacancies. This difference may impact other credit you will be getting in the near future. |
Paying taxes on dividends even though your capital gains were $0? | The issue for you seems to be the sequence of events. Presumably, there will be a gain in the fund. In one year, you have a fund worth $100,000 and the $8500 your netted from the $10,000 dividend. (Dividends are taxed at 15% for most of us. If your taxable income is under $38K single, it's $0) An $8500 net return for the year. Now, if there were no initial dividend, and at the end of a full year, your $100K grew to $110K, and then gave you the $10K dividend, you might not be so unhappy. Even on day 2, you now have a fund worth $90K with a basis of $100K, and the promise of future dividends or cap gains. When you sell, the first $10K of gain from this point will effectively be tax free due to this quick drop. To directly answer the last few sentences, dividends and cap gains are different. And different still, for the way a fund processes them. |
What's a good personal finance management web app that I can use in Canada? | I use MoneyStrands (formerly called Expensr), but mostly just to track expenses and look at reports on my spending habits. It has some really pretty charts, with the ability to drill down into categories and sub-categories, or graph monthly spending for any custom date range. It does a half-decent job of auto-categorizing the imported bank transactions, and you can set up additional rules for common vendors, but I still have to do some manual work after each import. It does a good job of integrating my credit cards, bank accounts, and I can even manually add cash transactions. It has some basic budgeting capabilities, but they're not very useful for someone who needs to carefully budget thier monthly spending. Another one I've heard about is mint.com, but it only supports American banks (last I heard, anyway). |
Why do interest rates increase or decrease? | Fundamentally interest rates reflect the time preference people place on money and the things money can buy. If I have a high time preference then I prefer money in my hand versus money promised to me at some date in the future. Thus, I will only loan my money to someone if they offer me an incentive which would be an amount of money to be received in the future that is larger than the amount of money I’m giving the debtor in the present (i.e. the interest rate). Many factors go into my time preference determination. My demand for cash (i.e. my cash balance), the credit rating of the borrower, the length of the loan, and my expectation of the change in currency value are just a few of the factors that affect what interest rate I will loan money. The first loan I make will have a lower interest rate than the last loan, ceteris paribus. This is because my supply of cash diminishes with each loan which makes my remaining cash more valuable and a higher interest rate will be needed to entice me to make additional loans. This is the theory behind why interest rates will rise when QE3 or QEinfinity ever stops. QE is where the Federal Reserve cartel prints new money to purchase bonds from cartel banks. If QE slows or ends the supply of money will stop increasing which will make cash more valuable and higher interest rates will be needed to entice creditors to loan money. Note that increasing the stock of money does not necessarily result in lower interest rates. As stated earlier, the change in value of the currency also affects the interest rate lenders are willing to accept. If the Federal Reserve cartel deposited $1 million everyday into every US citizen’s bank account it wouldn’t take long before lenders demanded very high interest rates as compensation for the decrease in the value of the currency. Does the Federal Reserve cartel affect interest rates? Yes, in two ways. First, as mentioned before, it prints new money that is loaned to the government. It either purchases the bonds directly or purchases the bonds from cartel banks which give them cash to purchase more government bonds. This keeps demand high for government bonds which lowers the yield on government bonds (yields move inverse to the price of the bond). The Federal Reserve cartel also can provide an unlimited amount of funds at the Federal Funds rate to the cartel member banks. Banks can borrow at this rate and then proceed to make loans at a higher rate and pocket the difference. Remember, however, that the Federal Reserve cartel is not the only market participant. Other bond holders, such as foreign governments and pension funds, buy and sell US bonds. At some point they could demand higher rates. The Federal Reserve cartel, which currently holds close to 17% of US public debt, could attempt to keep rates low by printing new money to buy all existing US bonds to prevent the yield on bonds from going up. At that point, however, holding US dollars becomes very dangerous as it is apparent the Federal Reserve cartel is just a money printing machine for the US government. That’s when most people begin to dump dollars en masse. |
Can I register for VAT to claim back VAT without selling VAT applicable goods? (UK) | IANAL, I have not been VAT registered myself but this is what I have picked up from various sources. You might want to confirm things with your solicitor or accountant. As I understand it there is a critical difference between supplying zero-rated goods/services and supplying exempt goods/services. If the goods/services are zero-rated then the normal VAT rules apply, you charge VAT on your outputs (at a rate of 0%) and can claim back VAT on your inputs (at whatever rate it was charged at, depending on the type of goods.. If the goods/services are exempt you don't charge and VAT on your outputs and can't claim back any VAT on your inputs. (Things get complicated if you have a mixture of exempt and non-exempt outputs) According to http://oko.uk/blog/adsense-vat-explained adsense income is a buisness to buisness transaction with a company in another EU country and so from a supplier point of view (you are the supplier, google is the customer) it counts as a zero-rated transaction. |
Why invest for the long-term rather than buy and sell for quick, big gains? | There are many technical answers above , but the short story to me is that very few active fund managers consistently beat the market. Look at the results of actively managed funds. Depending on whose analysis you read, you will find out that somewhere between 80-90% of fund managers in a given year do not beat passive index funds. So go figure how you will do compared to a mutual fund manager who has way more experience than you likely have. So, that in itself is moderately interesting, but if you look at same-manager performance over several consecutive years it is rare to find anyone that goes beats the market for more than a few years in a row. There are exceptions, but go pick one of these guys/gals - good luck. Getting in and out of the market is a loser. This is because there is no way to see market spikes and down turns. There are many behavioral studies that have been done that show people do the wrong thing: they sell after losses have occurred and they buy after the market has gone up. Missing an up spike and not being in before the spike is as devastating as missing a down turn and not getting out in time. There is another down side, if you are trading in a personal account, rather than a tax deferred account, going in and out of stocks has tax complications. In short, a broad based equity index will, over time, beat about anything out there and it will do it in a tax efficient manner. Exchange traded funds (ETFs) are a wonderful way to obtain diversification immediately at very low cost. |
What's the best way to make money from a market correction? | There are a few ways to make money from a market correction: |
Should I get a personal loan to pay on my mortgage to go "above water" to qualify for a refinance? | If you have a mortgage backed by FHA, Fannie, or Freddie I would hold off. There is talk of a new plan that would allow refi's on mortages that were underwater. I would expect rates to stay about the same for the forseeable future. Take that money you would spend each month on the personal loan and stick it into your mortgage payment to bring down your debt on it. Your home may be underwater on paper but once the economy comes back, or hyperinflation sets in (one of the 2 will happen) you will have equity in your home again soon after. |
Do I pay a zero % loan before another to clear both loans faster? | Your goal of wanting to eliminate your debts early is great. Generally, you can save more money by paying off loans with higher interest rates first. However, it sounds like you are excited about the idea of eliminating one of your car loans in two months. There is nothing wrong with that; it is good to be excited about eliminating debt. I like your plan. Pay off the $14.6k loan first, then apply the $635 monthly payment to the $19.4k loan. You'll have that loan paid off almost 3 years early. Perhaps you'll find some additional money to apply to it and get rid of it even earlier. After you've eliminated both car loans, save up that $1000/month for your next car. That will allow you to pay cash for it, which will allow you to negotiate the best price and save interest. 0% loans are not free money. Other answers will tell you to wait as long as possible to pay off your 0% loan, but I think there can be good reasons to eliminate smaller loans first, regardless of interest. |
Why doesn’t every company and individual use tax-havens to pay less taxes? | I believe that an understanding of the taxation system can help to understand our place in it, and how that impacts each of our personal finances. I will try to remain unbiased here but this is a somewhat subjective question, so please bear with me if you disagree on any point. Some of these tax savings are well-advertised, and can be used by many people, such as tax credits for mass-transit passes which exists in some countries. But some of these tax savings are things you never heard of before, until it winds up on the news. Why do some people seem to get tax savings that you and I cannot get, and why do those people always seem to have so much more money than us? A simplistic answer can show this in three parts: (1) The source of one's income; (2) Transaction costs; and (3) "tax loopholes". Tax savings occur proportionately to one's income, and if the savings apply to investment income, they occur proportionately to one's wealth. If someone living paycheck to paycheck with a minimal amount in a bank account "saves tax on investment income", they might reduce their taxable interest from $50 to $0. That's because they simply don't have any other investment income to reduce. All of their income comes in the form of employment, which is typically very hard to save taxes on. Most governments have a very firm grasp on the taxation of employment income, because it is a huge proportion of income in the country (and therefore has the largest amount of tax associated), and because it is very straightforward (work for someone = employment income). A more cynical person than I might point out that investment income is earned by the very wealthy, who can afford to lobby for politicians to pass favourable investment income laws. Even very straightforward tax saving opportunities may cost money to enable. The simplest example would be: if a tax saving opportunity is so complicated that an average person can't understand it themselves, then an accountant, lawyer, or banker will need to be the one to explain it. And that can cost you money. If your tax isn't so much to begin with, then the transaction costs to achieve the tax savings could be higher than the tax savings themselves. For example, most countries have tax savings / deferrals if you start a corporation. These rules typically exist to promote investment in the local economy. But someone who earns $10k in a side-business might not be able to afford the $3k in incorporation costs just to save $2k in taxes. The more income and wealth you have, the more these transaction costs become worthwhile. I'm going to generally define "tax loopholes" for the purposes of this answer as something where a somewhat arbitrary situation allows for taxes that a layman would consider unfair or unexpected. This often occurs with good intentions but poor legislation - the government tries to provide a benefit to a deserving group or to promote an activity, but ends up allowing another group to take advantage. For example in Canada, there existed until a few years ago tax saving rules about passing on wealth to children at lower tax rates, only when a close family member is near-death [setting up a 'testamentary trust' between a grandparent and a grandchild could in some circumstances allow that trust to be created with additional 'tax brackets', meaning more income would be taxed at a less-than top tax rate before being distributed to the grandchildren]. The rules were put in place with the idea that "oh gee, a family member has died, and the dang ol' family is grieving so hard they can't distribute the wealth to the next generation for a few months on account of all the crying. We should make it so that the estate is taxed like a person, and if they earn only a little income, they have a low tax rate, and they only get taxed at the full rate if they have a lot of income". Seems reasonable enough, but if a family is ready to pass on wealth at the same time as someone is nudging the bucket with their foot, a morbid discussion with your lawyer and accountant could set your children up for life with forever reduced taxes on massive inheritances. In the case of the Panama / Paradise leaks, tax savings are due to all 3 of the above: Those who have massive wealth (and therefore earn the majority of their income from investments instead of employment) can afford the transaction costs associated with taking advantage of specific "tax loopholes". The simplest example of which is just that income earned in a foreign country might have a lower tax rate than income earned domestically. This is often a result of "cracks" in the foreign tax treaties between countries, which exist generally to promote business between countries and prevent double-taxing individuals who need activity in both countries for whatever reason. Take for example the "Apple loophole". Apple has operations around the world. Some activity occurs in low-tax jurisdictions. Apple reports a high percentage of the value of R&D as being associated with those jurisdictions. Those branches in low-tax jurisdictions charge the high-tax branches (such as the US) with fees for use of their valuable research. So much of Apple's income is reported in those foreign jurisdictions. It won't be taxed in the US until Apple "repatriates" the cash back to the US. Until then, the cash sits in the foreign jurisdiction, accruing less tax. This and similar rules can be used by individuals wealthy enough to hold corporations in foreign jurisdictions with low tax rates. How each particular rule / "loophole" works will depend on the nature of a specific case - tax law is complex, and the rules between countries are even more so. These foreign tax loopholes are closing every year. It is getting harder and harder to hide money offshore, and it is getting less and less likely that you will be able to find a country with juuuust the right loopholes for your own offshore wealth. These types of news leaks will only help to expedite those changes. |
What should I be aware of as a young investor? | Risk and return always go hand by hand.* Risk is a measure of expected return volatility. The best investment at this stage is a good, easy to understand but thorough book on finance. *Applies to efficient markets only. |
Is 401k as good as it sounds given the way it is taxed? | If you pay 20% tax now and none later or if you pay no tax now and 20% later, it doesn't make a difference. Mathematically, it's the same. You have to guess about which tax rate (now vs later) will be higher for you in order for you to make the best choice. Predicting tax rates 40 years in advance is hard. Everybody pretends like they can do this accurately. I would suggest going half and half. If you have 20k and put half in pre-tax (10k in) and half in post-tax (only 8k in) you end up with 18k total in which is right in the middle of where you would be if you went with the whole 20k in either extreme. It would also leave you owing 2k in tax rather than the possible 4k in tax if you had gone with all pre-tax. When you split down the middle, you are guaranteed to have 50% in the "right" side, the side with the best outcome. Being guaranteed to be 50% on the right side is pretty good compared to maybe being 100% on the wrong side. |
What are the reasons to get more than one credit card? | A friend of mine has two credit cards. He has specifically arranged with the card issuers so that the billing cycles are 15 days out of sync. He uses whichever card has more recently ended its billing cycle, which gives him the longest possible time between purchase and the due date to avoid interest. |
What's a good free checking account? | Online banks are the future. As long as you don't need a clerk to talk to (and why would you need?) there's nothing you can't do with an online bank that you can with a brick and mortar robbers. I use E*Trade trading account as a checking account (it allows writing paper checks, debit card transactions, ACH in/out, free ATM, etc). If you don't need paper checks that often you can use ING or something similar. You can always go to a local credit union, but those will wave the fee in exchange for direct deposit or high balance, and that you can also get from the large banks as well, so no much difference there. Oh where where did Washington Mutual go.... |
When are payroll taxes due in the US? | It depends on the size of the payroll, not on the number of employees. Probably you need to file Form 941 quarterly under this scenario. You may or may not need to deposit taxes more frequently. If you must deposit, then you need to do it electronically. I excerpted this from the instructions for Form 941: If your total taxes (line 10) are less than $2,500 for the current quarter or the preceding quarter, and you did not incur a $100,000 next-day deposit obligation during the current quarter. You do not have to make a deposit. To avoid a penalty, you must pay the amount in full with a timely filed return or you must deposit the amount timely. ... If you are not sure your total tax liability for the current quarter will be less than $2,500 (and your liability for the preceding quarter was not less than $2,500), make deposits using the semiweekly or monthly rules so you won't be subject to failure to deposit penalties. If your total taxes (line 10) are $2,500 or more for the current quarter and the preceding quarter. You must make deposits according to your deposit schedule. See section 11 of Pub. 15 (Circular E) for information and rules about federal tax deposits. I would say that probably for two employees, you need to deposit by the 15th of each month for the prior month, but you really need to check the limits above and the deposit schedule in Pub 15 (as referenced above) based on your actual payroll size. Note that if you have a requirement to deposit, that must be done either through EFTPS or by wire-transfer. The former is free but requires registration in advance of your first payment (they snail-mail you a PIN that you need to log-in) and it requires that you get your payment in by the night before. The latter does not incur a charge from the IRS, but your bank will likely charge you a fee. You can do the wire-transfer on the due date, however, so it's handy if don't get into ETFPS in time. This is all for federal. You may also need to deposit for your state, and then you'll need to check the state's rules. |
What's the process to buy an old house to tear it down and create a new one? | Thank you for your response KeithB and Ross. I was researching more about this and looks like I have to follow all these steps (please, correct me if I'm wrong): |
Bid/ask spreads for index funds | First, what structure does your index fund have? If it is an open-end mutual fund, there are no bid/ask spread as the structure of this security is that it is priced once a day and transactions are done with that price. If it is an exchange-traded fund, then the question becomes how well are authorized participants taking advantage of the spread to make the fund track the index well? This is where you have to get into the Creation and Redemption unit construct of the exchange-traded fund where there are "in-kind" transactions done to either create new shares of the fund or redeem out shares of the fund. In either case, you are making some serious assumptions about the structure of the fund that don't make sense given how these are built. Index funds have lower expense ratios and are thus cheaper than other mutual funds that may take on more costs. If you want suggested reading on this, look at the investing books of John C. Bogle who studied some of this rather extensively, in addition to being one of the first to create an index fund that became known as "Bogle's Folly," where a couple of key ones would be "Common Sense on Mutual Funds: New Imperatives for the Intelligent Investor" and "Bogle on Mutual Funds: New Perspectives for the Intelligent Investor." In the case of an open-end fund, there has to be a portion of the fund in cash to handle transaction costs of running the fund as there are management fees to come from running the fund in addition to dividends from the stocks that have to be carefully re-invested and other matters that make this quite easy to note. Vanguard 500 Index Investor portfolio(VFINX) has .38% in cash as an example here where you could look at any open-end mutual fund's portfolio and notice that there may well be some in cash as part of how the fund is managed. It’s the Execution, Stupid would be one of a few articles that looks at the idea of "tracking error" or how well does an index fund actually track the index where it can be noted that in some cases, there can be a little bit of active management in the fund. Just as a minor side note, when I lived in the US I did invest in index funds and found them to be a good investment. I'd still recommend them though I'd argue that while some want to see these as really simple investments, there can be details that make them quite interesting to my mind. How is its price set then? The price is computed by taking the sum value of all the assets of the fund minus the liabilities and divided by the number of outstanding shares. The price of the assets would include the closing price on the stock rather than a bid or ask, similar pricing for bonds held by the fund, derivatives and cash equivalents. Similarly, the liabilities would be costs a fund has to pay that may not have been paid yet such as management fees, brokerage costs, etc. Is it a weighted average of all the underlying stock spreads, or does it stand on its own and stems from the usual supply & demand laws ? There isn't any spread used in determining the "Net Asset Value" for the fund. The fund prices are determined after the market is closed and so a closing price can be used for stocks. The liabilities could include the costs to run the fund as part of the accounting in the fund, that most items have to come down to either being an asset, something with a positive value, or a liability, something with a negative value. Something to consider also is the size of the fund. With over $7,000,000,000 in assets, a .01% amount is still $700,000 which is quite a large amount in some ways. |
What's the benefit of opening a Certificate of Deposit (CD) Account? | Yes. Savings accounts and CDs today pay almost nothing. They are not a way to grow your money for the future. They are a place to keep some spare cash for emergencies. I don't have such accounts any more. Personally, I generally keep about $2000 in my checking account for any sudden surprise expenses. Any other spare money I have I put into very safe mutual funds. They don't grow much either, but it's better than what I'd get on a savings account or CD. |
May 6, 2010 stock market decline/plunge: Why did it drop 9% in a few minutes? | I hate attributing an event like this to a single cause. That implies that the market is an orderly system where everything operates smoothly. I prefer to see it as much chaotic. When I see a drop like that happen, I'd say that there were a lot of sellers of stocks and all the buyers were bidding less and less for those few minutes. Perhaps the catalyst for that was a typo or a strange order. But in the end all the participants in the market responded by bidding down stocks, not just one person. It takes sides to complete a trade. I know my model is a bit simplistic... I'd be happy if someone corrected me :-) |
How come the government can value a home more than was paid for the house? | When a house is sold at a foreclosure auction, the selling bank usually does not provide the guarantees that a normal house seller provides. Furthermore, the previous owner may have neglected the property, and/or spitefully damaged the property. Bank-owned properties are often neglected and/or vandalized. Banks are usually too short-sighted to properly market the real estate they own, and do a poor job of making it easy to buy the property. Thus, foreclosure sales usually happen at a price that is significantly below the "fair market value" of sales between competent households. It is common for a house that is worth $ 125,000 (even in a depressed market) to sell for only $ 100,000 in a short sale or foreclosure. It is possible that this property sold for an even larger discount. It is also possible that the tax assessor is (inadvertently) comparing a run-down property with well-maintained properties that have extra expensive features, without fully adjusting for the properties' conditions and features. In the latter scenario, the property owner can ask the tax assessor to re-consider the assessment. Usually this request is called an "appeal". |
What traditionally happens to bonds when the stock market crashes? | It depends. Very generally when yields go up stocks go down and when yields go down stocks go up (as has been happening lately). If we look at the yield of the 10 year bond it reflects future expectations for interest rates. If the rate today is very low but expectations are that the short term rates will go up that would be reflected in a higher yield simply because no one would buy the longer term bond if they could simply wait out and get a better return on shoter term investments. If expectations are that the rate is going down you get what's called an inverted yield curve. The inverted yield curve is usually a sign of economic trouble ahead. Yields are also influenced by inflation expectations as @rhaskett is alluding in his answer. So. If the stock market crashes because the economy is doing poorly and if interest rates are relatively high then people would expect the rates to go down and therefore bonds will go up! However, if there's rampant inflation and the rates are going up we can expect stocks and bonds to move in opposite directions. Another interpretation of that is that one would expect stock prices to track inflation pretty well because company revenue is going to go up with inflation. If we're just talking about a bump in the road correction in a healthy economy I wouldn't expect that to have much of an immediate effect though bonds might go down a little bit in the short term but possibly even more in the long term as interest rates eventually head higher. Another scenario is a very low interest rate environment (as today) with a stock market crash and not a lot of room for yields to go further down. Both stocks and bonds are influenced by current interest rates, interest rate expectations, current inflation, inflation expectations and stock price expectation. Add noise and stir. |
When is Cash Value Life Insurance a good or bad idea? | Buy term and invest the rest is something you will hear all the time, but actually cash value life insurance is a very misunderstood, useful financial product. Cash value life insurance makes sense if: If you you aren't maxing out your retirement accounts, just stick with term insurance, and save as much as you can for retirement. Otherwise, if you have at least 5 or 10k extra after you've funded retirement (for at least 7 years), one financial strategy is to buy a whole life policy from one of the big three mutual insurance firms. You buy a low face value policy, for example, say 50k face value; the goal is to build cash value in the policy. Overload the policy by buying additional paid up insurance in the first 7 years of the policy, using a paid-up addition rider of the policy. This policy will then grow its cash value at around 2% to 4% over the life of the policy....similar perhaps to the part of your portfolio that would would be in muni bonds; basically you are beating inflation by a small margin. Further, as you dump money into the policy, the death benefit grows. After 7 or 8 years, the cash value of the policy should equal the money you've put into it, and your death benefit will have grown substantially maybe somewhere around $250k in this example. You can access the cash value by taking a policy loan; you should only do this when it makes sense financially or in an emergency; but the important thing to realize is that your cash is there, if you need it. So now you have insurance, you have your cash reserves. Why should you do this? You save up your cash and have access to it, and you get the insurance for "free" while still getting a small return on your investment. You are diversifying your financial portfolio, pushing some of your money into conservative investments. |
How to rebalance a portfolio without moving money into losing investments | A strategy of rebalancing assumes that the business cycle will continue, that all bull and bear markets end eventually. Imagine that you maintained a 50% split between a US Treasury bond mutual fund (VUSTX) and an S&P 500 stock mutual fund (VFINX) beginning with a $10,000 investment in each on January 1, 2008, then on the first of each year you rebalanced your portfolio on the first of January (we can pretend the markets are open that day). The following table illustrates the values in each of those funds with the rebalancing transactions: This second table shows what that same money would look like without any rebalancing over those years: Obviously this is cherry-picking for the biggest drop we've recently experienced, but even if you skipped 2008 and 2009, the increase for a rebalanced portfolio from 2010-2017 is 85% verses 54% for the portfolio that is not being rebalanced in the same period. This is also a plenty conservative portfolio. You can see that a 100% stock portfolio dropped 40% in 2008, but the combined portfolio only dropped 18%. A 100% stock portfolio has gained 175% since 2009, compared to 105% for the balanced portfolio, but it's common to trade gains for safety as you get closer to retirement. You didn't ask about a 100% stock portfolio in your initial question. These results would be repeated in many other portfolio allocations because some asset classes outperform others one year, then underperform the next. You sell after the years it outperforms, then you buy after years that it underperforms. |
Does financing a portfolio on margin affect the variance of a portfolio? | Financing a portfolio with debt (on margin) leads to higher variance. That's the WHOLE POINT. Let's say it's 50-50. On the downside, with 100% equity, you can never lose more than your whole equity. But if you have assets of 100, of which 50% is equity and 50% is debt, your losses can be greater than 50%, which is to say more than the value of your equity. The reverse is true. You can make money at TWICE the rate if the market goes up. But "you pay your money and you take your chances" (Punch, 1846). |
Is it sensible to keep savings in a foreign currency? | Given that we live in a world rife with geopolitical risks such as Brexit and potential EU breakup, would you say it's advisable to keep some of cash savings in a foreign currency? Probably not. Primarily because you don't know what will happen in the fallout of these sorts of political shifts. You don't know what will happen to banking treaties between the various countries involved. If you can manage to place funds on deposit in a foreign bank/country in a currency other than your home currency and maintain the deposit insurance in that country and not spend too much exchanging your currency then there probably isn't a downside other than liquidity loss. If you're thinking I'll just wire some whatever currency to some bank in some foreign country in which you have no residency or citizenship consideration without considering deposit insurance just so you might protect some of your money from a possible future event I think you should stay away. |
Do rental car agencies sell their cars at a time when it is risky for the purchaser? | Many Web sites and articles warn against buying former rental cars, because people renting these cars often mistreat them. Rental cars are typically driven by people over 25, these are typically people with some financial means (air travel, credit card). Additionally, rental cars are subject to frequent inspection and likely to be on tighter maintenance schedules than many owners would keep. So while some people may drive a rental harder than they would their own car, it's not typical, and not likely to result in some hidden damage that makes a rental less desirable (all else being equal) on the used-car market. Does the fact that they sell the car mean during this time suggest that they know the car's cost of further maintenance or other costs will be higher? Or is there another reason they sell at this time which, has a calculated advantage to them, but which is less than idea statistically for me, the purchaser? Rental companies buy at incredible volumes, as such, some manufacturers have programs where they will buy back used cars from the rental company at a set price and/or time. Other incentives are guaranteed depreciation, wherein the manufacturer will make up the difference if the used vehicle doesn't sell for a set percentage of it's purchase price after a set amount of time. Outside of these incentive programs, rental companies also get substantial volume discounts, and they typically are buying base models which hold value better than their higher-trim counterparts (according to KBB market analyst). So the conventional wisdom about depreciation doesn't really apply. The timing of their sales is primarily based on their purchasing arrangements and their desire to keep an up to date fleet, not on projected maintenance/repair costs. The best you can do with any used-car purchase is to test-drive, get a pre-purchase inspection, and review whatever history is available. |
Higher mortgage to increase savings to invest? | Clearly this is doable and many people are doing exactly this. At that kind of rate many will tell you to borrow as much as you can and invest. This strategy does not work if you spend that money on dumb stuff, but you don't seem the type to do such a thing. In some will argue that it is the only logical thing to do. Some will say that this is not a good idea due to risk. Your chosen investment could lose value. If this happens you would have been better off paying down your mortgage. While my own interest rate is not as good as yours, it still pretty darn low (1.97%) after my tax discount. Despite that I am aggressively paying down my mortgage. My wife and I want to be debt free. There is a certain freedom that comes along with that which cannot be explained by numbers. |
Should I put more money down on one property and pay it off sooner or hold on to the cash? | I would go with the 2nd option (put down as little as possible) with a small caveat: avoid the mortgage insurance if you can and put down 20%. Holding your rental property(ies)'s mortgage has some benefits: You can write off the mortgage interest. In Canada you cannot write off the mortgage interest from your primary residence. You can write off stuff renovations and new appliances. You can use this to your advantage if you have both a primary residence and a rental property. Get my drift? P.S. I do not think it's a good time right now to buy a property and rent it out simply because the housing prices are over-priced. The rate of return of your investment is too low. P.S.2. I get the feeling from your question that you would like to purchase several properties in the long-term future. I would like to say that the key to good and low risk investing is diversification. Don't put all of your money into one basket. This includes real estate. Like any other investment, real estate goes down too. In the last 50 or so years real estate has only apprepriated around 2.5% per year. While, real estate is a good long term investment, don't make it 80% of your investment portfolio. |
Basic Algorithmic Trading Strategy | This strategy is called trading the 'Golden Cross' if the 50 day SMA moves above the 200 day, or the 'Death Cross' when the 50 day SMA moves below the 200 day SMA. Long-term indicators carry more weight than shorter-term indicators, and this cross, in a positive direction signals a change in momentum of the stock. You will not catch the very bottom using this method, but there is a better chance that you will catch a move near the beginning of a longer-term trend. Golden Cross Information - Zacks |
Are online mortgage lenders as good as local brick-and-mortar ones? | I had a pretty good experience with Lending Tree, although they are a mortgage broker, not a lender themselves. |
How does an index rearrange its major holdings | An index will drop a company for several reasons: A fund decides how close they want to mirror the index. Some do so exactly, others only approximate the index. |
How to measure how the Australian dollar is faring independent of the US dollar | The best answer to your question would to be what the interest rates are like in Australia itself. The Reserve Bank sets the target ‘cash rate’, which is the market interest rate on overnight funds. It uses this as the instrument for monetary policy, and influences the cash rate through its financial market operations. Decisions regarding the cash rate target are made by the Reserve Bank Board and explained in a media release announcing the decision at 2.30 pm after each Board meeting. (Prior to December 2007, media releases were issued only when the cash rate target was changed.) From Investopedia: How Rates Are Calculated Each central bank's board of directors controls the monetary policy of its country and the short-term prime interest rate that banks use to borrow from each other. When the economy is doing well, interest rates are hiked in order to curb inflation and when times are tough, cut rates to encourage lending and inject money into the economy. Have a look at this from graph from http://www.rba.gov.au/monetary-policy/int-rate-decisions/ I would then go to a website that allows you to compare, graphically, whichever interest rate you want.(Or you could get the raw data and run some analysis, to each his own) FYI, this topic (FX) is incredibly complex and I hope my answer satisfies your needs.Otherwise, talk to a quant. You will need a ton of data inputs to model the entire economy of Australia to try and predict what the central bank will do, which is what people try and do everyday. Best of luck! |
Safe and cheap way to send money from Canada to South America | The catch with any exchange service is that you're going to involve some sort of business and they're going to want to get paid for their service. These services all come with their own exchange rates, fees, waiting periods, or requirements to even use said service. Commonly, pros towards one of those comes at the cost of another— e.g. fast transfers have higher fees or worse exchange rates. Over the past few months I needed a service and ended up using USForex. Since you're going from CAD to USD, you'd likely need to use CanadianForex. Pros: Cons: Overall, this option was far better than the $97.00 I was quoted from WesternUnion; or the $25.00-45.00 I was quoted from BMO Harris, which would have required I open a saving account with them. I wasn't provided a clean exchange rate between these two to know how all three compared. The only bit of advice I can say with any service is compare exchange rates. If you're transferring more than a few hundred dollars, the exchange rate can be seen as a "hidden" fee when it's unreasonably low. I'm not affiliated with or accommodated by any of the exchange services mentioned. |
Is 401k as good as it sounds given the way it is taxed? | There are 3 options (option 2 may not be available to you) When you invest 18,000 in a Traditional 401k, you don't pay taxes on the 18k the year you invest, but you pay taxes as you withdraw. There's a Required Minimum Distribution required after age 70. If your income is low enough, you won't pay taxes on your withdrawals. Otherwise, you pay as if it is income. However, you don't pay payroll tax (Social Security / Medicare) on the withdrawals. You pay no tax until you withdraw. When you invest 18,000 in a Roth 401k, you pay income tax on the 18,000 in the year it's invested, but you pay nothing after that. When you invest 18,000 in a taxable investment account, you pay income tax on that 18,000 in the year it's invested, you pay tax on dividends (even if they're re-invested), and then you pay capital gains tax when you withdraw. But remember, tax rules and tax rates are only good so long as Congress doesn't change the applicable laws. |
What software do you recommend for Creating a To-The-Penny, To-The-Day Budget? | I really don't know about will it help you, but here is what I do: It is not classic solution, but maybe it will work for you (works for me very well). |
Should I Use an Investment Professional? | Agree with the above poster regarding causation vs. correlation. Unless you can separate out the variables questions like this are somewhat impossible to answer. Additionally, one of the fundamental issues is the Agency Problem. Depending on the fee structure the advisor might be more interested in their own self benefit then yours. |
List of Investments from safest to riskiest? | I think your premise is slightly flawed. Every investment can add or reduce risk, depending on how it's used. If your ordering above is intended to represent the probability you will lose your principal, then it's roughly right, with caveats. If you buy a long-term government bond and interest rates increase while you're holding it, its value will decrease on the secondary markets. If you need/want to sell it before maturity, you may not recover your principal, and if you hold it, you will probably be subject to erosion of value due to inflation (inflation and interest rates are correlated). Over the short-term, the stock market can be very volatile, and you can suffer large paper losses. But over the long-term (decades), the stock market has beaten inflation. But this is true in aggregate, so, if you want to decrease equity risk, you need to invest in a very diversified portfolio (index mutual funds) and hold the portfolio for a long time. With a strategy like this, the stock market is not that risky over time. Derivatives, if used for their original purpose, can actually reduce volatility (and therefore risk) by reducing both the upside and downside of your other investments. For example, if you sell covered calls on your equity investments, you get an income stream as long as the underlying equities have a value that stays below the strike price. The cost to you is that you are forced to sell the equity at the strike price if its value increases above that. The person on the other side of that transaction loses the price of the call if the equity price doesn't go up, but gets a benefit if it does. In the commodity markets, Southwest Airlines used derivatives (options to buy at a fixed price in the future) on fuel to hedge against increases in fuel prices for years. This way, they added predictability to their cost structure and were able to beat the competition when fuel prices rose. Even had fuel prices dropped to zero, their exposure was limited to the pre-negotiated price of the fuel, which they'd already planned for. On the other hand, if you start doing things like selling uncovered calls, you expose yourself to potentially infinite losses, since there are no caps on how high the price of a stock can go. So it's not possible to say that derivatives as a class of investment are risky per se, because they can be used to reduce risk. I would take hedge funds, as a class, out of your list. You can't generally invest in those unless you have quite a lot of money, and they use strategies that vary widely, many of which are quite risky. |
What are some well known or well regarded arguments against investing? | Oh, geez, well-regarded arguments against investing, hmm? Well, I have a couple. They're not against investing per se. They're asking about your priorities and whether you might have something better to do than inevesting: And he spake a parable unto them, saying, The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully: and he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do, because I have no room where to bestow my fruits? And he said, This will I do: I will pull down my barns, and build greater; and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry. But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided? So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God. -- Luke 12:16-21 Christian or otherwise, there may be better things for you to do with your excess cash - indeed, with your life - than simply invest it to bring yourself more money. Many people find charitable contributions more important than spending a little more money on themselves (immediately or in the future). Of course, you will need to decide what these things are that matter to you. Perhaps you would like to contribute to traditional charities. Perhaps you would like to fund education, or a religious organization, or the Democratic Party, or the Republican Party, or the Libertarian Party, or the Green Party, or the Tea Party, or Occupy Wall Street. Perhaps you'd like to fund research into something. Perhaps you simply have friends and family that you want to make happy. Perhaps a small vacation to spend time with family is worth more to you now than the investment returns will be worth later. Moreover, note that economic decisions like this are made on the margin - it's not so much a question of whether you invest at all, but whether you should invest more or less, and spend/donate more or less. I made me great works; I builded me houses; I planted me vineyards: I made me gardens and orchards, and I planted trees in them of all kind of fruits: I made me pools of water, to water therewith the wood that bringeth forth trees: I got me servants and maidens, and had servants born in my house; also I had great possessions of great and small cattle above all that were in Jerusalem before me: I gathered me also silver and gold, and the peculiar treasure of kings and of the provinces: I got me men singers and women singers, and the delights of the sons of men, as musical instruments, and that of all sorts. So I was great, and increased more than all that were before me in Jerusalem: also my wisdom remained with me. And whatsoever mine eyes desired I kept not from them, I withheld not my heart from any joy; for my heart rejoiced in all my labor: and this was my portion of all my labor. Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and on the labor that I had labored to do: and, behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun. -- Ecclesiastes 2:4-11 Because in the long run, we're all dead. Anywho! It's all a matter of returns and risk analysis. Even spending on yourself and charitable giving can be thought in these terms (the returns are not 'more money', so they may be harder to analyze, but they're important too). |
What are some good ways to control costs for groceries? | All excellent answers. Scott W. already mentioned to look out for sales and many other answers are ways to be smart with portions: don't overbuy, or be smart with bulk buys. But, I'm surprised nobody mentioned one of the things I'd consider obvious about saving money on groceries: coupons! Coupons can save cash. We'll sometimes use coupons for brands we'd be buying anyway, or other comparably-priced brands that we're willing to try. The thing to be careful of with coupons is when the manufacturer is attempting to up-sell you to a premium brand, or trying to get you to buy a product you'd never have bought anyway. Anyway, we especially like the coupons that Costco sends in the mail once in a while, or those they hand out at the warehouse entrance. What better way to save than to: All the better if the items aren't perishable. When we have the space and those grocery savings stars are all in alignment, we load up on such items as paper towels, oatmeal/cereal bars, soap, etc. |
In Canada, how bad must your credit be for a denial of a Secured Credit Card? | Although now there are "welcome" banking packages when I landed in 2008 I couldn't find any and Vancity gave me a secured visa nonetheless. Let me emphasize: I didn't have a credit history, score at all. I doubt this changed much. The bank has zero risk. |
I got my bank account closed abruptly how do I get money out? | Coming from someone who has worked a in the account servicing department of an actual bank in the US, other answers are right, this is probably a scam, the phone number on the letter is probably ringing to a fraudulent call center (these are very well managed and sound professional), and you must independently locate and dial the true contact number to US Bank. NOW. Tell them what happened. Reporting is critical. Securing your money is critical. Every piece of information you provided "the bank" when you called needs to be changed or worked around. Account numbers, passwords, usernames, card numbers get changed. Tax ID numbers get de-prioritized as an authentication mechanism even if the government won't change them. The true bank probably won't transfer you to the branch. If the front-line call center says they will, ask the person on the phone what the branch can do that they cannot. Information is your friend. They will probably transfer you to a special department that handles these reports. Apparently Union Bank's call center transfers you to the branch then has the branch make this transfer. Maybe their front-line call center team is empowered to handle it like I was. Either way, plug your phone in; if the call takes less than 5 minutes they didn't actually do everything. 5 to 8 minutes per department is more likely, plus hold time. There's a lot of forms they're filling out. What if that office is closed because of time differences? Go online and ask for an ATM limit increase. Start doing cash advances at local banks if your card allows it. Just get that money out of that account before it's in a fraudsters account. Keep receipts, even if the machine declines the transaction. Either way, get cash on hand while you wait for a new debit card and checks for the new account you're going to open. What if this was fraud, you draw your US Bank account down to zero $800 at a time, and you don't close it or change passwords? Is it over? No. Then your account WILL get closed, and you will owe EVERYTHING that the fraudsters rack up (these charges can put your account terrifyingly far in the negative) from this point forward. This is called "participation in a scam" in your depository agreement, because you fell victim to it, didn't report, and the info used was voluntarily given. You will also lose any of your money that they spend. What if US Bank really is closing your account? Then they owe you every penny you had in it. (Minus any fees allowed in the depository agreement). This closure can happen several days after the date on the warning, so being able to withdraw doesn't mean you're safe. Banks usually ship an official check shipped to the last known address they had for you. Why would a bank within the United States close my account when it's not below the minimum balance? Probably because your non-resident alien registration from when you were in school has expired and federal law prohibits them from doing business with you now. These need renewed at least every three years. Renewing federally is not enough; the bank must be aware of the updated expiration date. How do I find out why my account is being closed? You ask the real US Bank. They might find that it's not being closed. Good news! Follow the scam reporting procedure, open a new account (with US Bank if you want, or elsewhere) and close the old one. If it IS being closed by the bank, they'll tell you why, and they'll tell you what your next options are. Ask what can be done. Other commenters are right that bitcoin activity may have flagged it. That activity might actually be against your depository agreement. Or it set off a detection system. Or many other reasons. The bank who services your account is the only place that knows for sure. If I offer them $500 per year will they likely keep the account opened? Otherwise I got to go to singapore open another account Legitimate financial institutions in the United States don't work this way. If there is a legal problem with your tax status in the US, money to the bank won't solve it. Let's call the folks you've talked to "FraudBank" and the real USBank "RealBank," because until RealBank confirms, we have no reason to believe that the letter is real. FraudBank will ask for money. Don't give it. Don't give them any further information. Gather up as much information from them as possible instead. Where to send it, for example. Then report that to RealBank. RealBank won't have a way to charge $500/year to you only. If they offer a type of account to everyone that costs $500, ask for the "Truth in Savings Act disclosures." Banks are legally required to provide these upon request. Then read them. Don't put or keep your money anywhere you don't understand. |
Would an ESOP issue physical shares or stock options (call options) to participating employees? | Not necessarily. The abbreviation "ESOP" is ambiguous. There are at least 8 variations I know of: You'll find references on Google to each of those, some more than others. For fun you can even substitute the word "Executive" for "Employee" and I'm sure you'll find more. Really. So you may be mistaken about the "O" referring to "options" and thereby implying it must be about options. Or, you may be right. If you participate in such a plan (or program) then check the documentation and then you'll know what it stands for, and how it works. That being said: companies can have either kind of incentive plan: one that issues stock, or one that issues options, with the intent to eventually issue stock in exchange for the option exercise price. When options are issued, they usually do have an expiration date by which you need to exercise if you want to buy the shares. There may be other conditions attached. For instance, whether the plan is about stocks or options, often there is a vesting schedule that determines when you become eligible to buy or exercise. When you buy the shares, they may be registered directly in your name (you might get a fancy certificate), or they may be deposited in an account in your name. If the company is small and private, the former may be the case, and if public, the latter may be the case. Details vary. Check the plan's documentation and/or with its administrators. |
Growth rate plus dividend yieid total? | The sum of the dividend yield plus capital growth is called total return. In your examples, you get to a total return of 7% through several different (and theoretically equivalent) paths. That is the right way of thinking. |